It’s About the Why, Not I Am the Why

The best and easiest way to transfer the potential of leadership is by focusing on the why. True leaders gain fulfillment from focusing on the WHY and how it helps, supports, trains, or meets a need of the team or others they lead – not themselves. #DailyMight

The best and easiest way to transfer the true potential of leadership within your athletes is by focusing on the why. Know the Why is a trendy buzz phrase and it’s one of the most sought after pillars of great leadership playbooks. Transferring the why engages followers (that’s your athletes) by utilizing buy-in to reach untapped potential. True leaders (like leaders out in front leaders), gain fulfillment from focusing on the why and how that helps, supports, trains, or meets a need of the team or athletes they lead.

Coaching is inherently a little tricky when it comes to the reason why. As you mold your team and put them in the best positions to succeed, it’s easy to get lost in the wins and losses. What I really mean is, sometimes the why is tempted to move from that of the benefit of the athlete, to what is the benefit of the coach. For the record, what I mean is winning. Coaches who push the why to themselves, jeopardize the potential of their leadership by shifting the motives of their teaching. That’s a bad spot to be in for youth athletes.

Protecting the Why

Selfish ambition can ruin a team. Countless stories and experiences in youth sports mostly lead back to selfish motives by athletes or coaches (or worse yet – organizations). “What have you done for me lately?” typically leads to let downs and animosity for all parties. Protecting the why has never been more vital to the successful experience of youth athletes. Knowing the why (building sport specific skillsets and social skills in athletes through the games they love) protects that love and fuels their passion. Shifting it to selfish why’s has disastrous effects long term.

Building the Why

Genuine humility can build a team – literally the complete opposite of selfishness. Building the why means each of us (coaches and athletes) looking into not only our own interests (which is helpful), but also the interest of others (which is valuable). Is what I have and can offer beneficial to those around me? What can I pass to athletes that will help them with their mission? It’s important to constantly be building what the why is. And if it’s only about you – well, I’d say you need to keep exploring a better why.

Let me be super clear though. The point is not that we should put ourselves down or assume our why is less important than those we lead. What I am saying is that we need to lay aside our selfishness and treat others with respect and acknowledge their why too. Considering other’s interests as more important than ours isn’t putting ours down – it’s merely elevating them more than ours.

Building and protecting the why’s of the coaches and athletes is an integral exercise is realizing your why – and the why’s of your athletes. How we use those why’s is the difference between a team that is building and a team that is crumbling. Doing nothing from selfish ambition helps you keep the right why, the right why. Put another way, it’s about the why, NOT I am the why.

Give everything your everything. And then some.

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